THE BORDERS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

by Lionel Terray ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Terray, now in his early forties, is a mountaineer extraordinaire, who cannot bear the petty humbugs of everyday life and is impelled to climb virtually impossible slopes. His compulsion to conquer the useless has led him to undertake the administrative burden of several large-scale expeditions and he is the only living man who has led three major expeditions to success in the course of one year, in three distinct ranges and on two continents. His first grandiose climb (which has yet to be repeated by anyone) was, with a friend up the Col du Caiman, an almost vertical ice-gully, and out of his success here he evolved a precise ethic and philosophy for mountaineering. During the later part of the Resistance he helped transport materiel over mountain fastnesses, something during hopeless weather (he was caught in two avalanches). One of his early great climbs was up the north face of the Eiger, which is utterly hair-raising reading. Becoming a professional guide, he participated in eleven expeditions to the Andes and Himalayas, accompanied Herzog up Annapurna, and ascended the ""impossible"" Chacraraju in Peru. Terray writes well and his title is without fault.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1964

Categories: NONFICTION